Sunday, 8 January 2017

Christmas in Rothbury

Chloe
is a delight when she is allowed to run around and play, always happy and
waving.But we should have waited until
she has had her fill of playing before we tried to pick her up for a photo!

We
were very lucky with the weather this year.It is usually grey and raining, cold and often covered in snow.This year Rothbury was milder than we have
ever known it, and we even had quite a few sunny days.Not often we see shadows on our walking
photos at this time of year in England.

There
are three lovely walks from Rothbury.The longer one is to Simonside, with its views down on the village and
Cragside behind.

The
whole walk is about nine miles.It
starts with a pleasant river walk, a (usually) muddy section over fields and
lanes, a steep climb up Simonside and a long descent over moorland back to
Rothbury.

The
second walk is on “our side” of the valley up and over Cragside.This one is about seven miles and starts
with a steep climb behind Stuart’s house.The first part is over more muddy fields and a long climb through a
wooded section, again very muddy.

But
we finally emerge on the top of Cragside where we have a long circular walk of
about two miles with wonderful and ever changing views of the Coquet valley
below and the Cheviots in the distance.Here the paths are quite good, but again muddy with large water
obstacles.We keep a pair of walking
boots in Rothbury, but at this time of year we really should invest in a couple
of pairs of wellington boots.

As
we reached the half way point of our walk we saw this rainbow, despite the lack
of rain.However within ten minutes the
sun had been replaced with a heavy sleet /snow fall.We were soaking by the time we arrived home,
and had to abandon our usual after walk drink in Rothbury in favour of a hot
bath.

The
third walk is along the river Coquet.This is an all weather walk and very popular all year around with both
the locals and day visitors.You can see
that on New Years Eve the car park was full as always.It is about one mile in length, but can be
extended another mile on unofficial tracks through the fields and along the
river to Thropton.We use this walk a
lot in all weather.

Another
very enjoyable Christmas and New Year with the grandchildren.All the more enjoyable as we could get in a
few decent walks due to the mild and sunny weather.